The Challenge and Delight

When it comes to cooking and eating, Ray and I have very different approaches. He likes to eat out when he’s not at home and eat what I cook when he is. When he occasionally makes food he tries to perfect his favorites like mac […]

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Glorious Transformation

On a chilly winter’s evening, get a cutting board and stand near your stove. Cut the stem and root end off two or three medium sized yellow onions. Slice them in half from stem to root and peel off the skin. Cut each hemisphere of […]

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Clarified Butter

Now that I have finished my big spring cleaning, I am glad to report that the weather has caught up with my spring mind set. The sunny days, budding trees and warmer temperatures are reinforcing my need to embrace and incorporate new things into my […]

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Icing on the Cake

Black beans are a staple in our kitchen. I cook up a batch nearly every week. They’re not fancy food, nothing glamorous or particularly photogenic about them. But they taste so good and never disappoint. Often I’ll serve them on top of brown rice, garnished […]

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On My To Do List

Are you a list maker? How do you stay organized and on top of things? I often make piles to keep things neat. A stack of things is less distracting than having papers and books strewn across my desk. I also make lots of lists. […]

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Making Stock

In case you are wondering, this is not a photo of my compost bin. Unfortunately, I must admit, that I do not currently have a place to compost my food scraps. I left my worms with my friend Jen in Maine and have yet to […]

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Homemade Tomato Sauce

So, you’ve got some ricotta and a bunch of pasta. You could make baked ziti, ravioli, tortellini, stuffed shells, manicotti…. Whatever variation of hearty Italian meal you choose, you will surely need some tomato sauce to pour on top of it, or between the layers […]

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Homemade Mustard

In my quest to make things from scratch, I have realized that there are so many things that at first seem unscratchable. It’s so easy to go to the grocery store and bringing home boxes, cartons and jars of food that sometimes it seems like […]

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Oh, Pesto!

This is the season when my obsession with food preservation begins. Usually, by mid-August, I have strawberries and blueberries in the freezer, maybe some jam or preserves canned and I am thinking about finding piles of tomatoes to make into salsa and sauce. Since we’ve […]

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